I was diagnosed with stage 4 incurable breast cancer on 18th October 2017.I had no obvious symptoms that I was aware of (although knowing what I know now, I did) and was waiting for the results of a CT scan to find out what the cause of my sore throat/paralysed vocal chord was. At the time, I knew what breast cancer was, but I didn’t know anything about stage 4/secondary breast cancer, and the fact that whilst it was treatable, it was incurable. I will always have cancer.My treatment has so far included 5 months of weekly chemotherapy and 19 sessions of daily radiotherapy. I am now on a maintenance regime of daily letrozole and intravenous Trastuzumab (Herceptin) every 3 weeks.This regime will continue until one day, I will be told that my cancer is growing and that these drugs no longer work. I don’t know when that will be – it could be months, it could be years. But even then, I hope I will still have options – more chemo, different drugs, surgery. That is what those of us with secondary cancer live for – options. My cancer and the drugs that I take to keep it under control have many side effects, the worst one for me is fatigue. This means I have had to let go of the job I loved, the daily contact with my friends and colleagues and that sense of being ‘someone’. I now live a much quieter life, I have to pace myself and make sure that I don’t overdo it. Nearly 7 years on from diagnosis, and I am now in a better place, but it has been hard. So hard to accept my ‘new normal’.Before cancer, I was a highly skilled IT professional, with significant IT experience in both private and public sectors, covering highly complex systems development, implementation, maintenance and support.